Reproductive Rights in the United States

Who in the United States has the ability to decide whether and when to have children, and why? Though reproductive rights can be construed narrowly as state-sanctioned access to the ability to decide, in this course, we will look at reproductive rights in the broadest sense, both historical and contemporary. How have efforts to expand access to reproductive rights for some contributed to an infringement on reproductive rights for others? Does the state have an obligation to secure reproductive rights and on what grounds does it refuse/extend those rights? Who do reproductive rights apply to? Who is considered a pregnant person? Which pregnancies are treated with dignity and which are not? We will begin with the question of intersectionality–looking at the historical landscape of reproductive rights and justice from the perspective of black women, spanning the era of slavery to welfare reform in the 1990s. From there we will trace the conceptual landscape – looking at the legal, judicial, and material specificities of a range of reproductive rights issues. Finally, we will look more broadly at the work of reproduction, asking what other institutions, practices, and issues of justice intersect with the central question of the course. Who is responsible for the work of reproduction not only in the generational sense, but in the daily sense? What does the daily work of reproduction look like, and how is it valued (or not) in our society? Ultimately this course aims to examine reproductive rights from the perspective of reproductive justice, encouraging us to ask what we might hope for the future of reproduction.